Smartphones patent war reaches to India and the popular brand in the Indian smartphones market, Micromax came into the arena against world’s largest mobile network infrastructure player, Ericsson. According to a recent report by Economic Times, Ericsson has reportedly sued Micromax for patent infringement.

Micromax Ericsson patent war

Ericsson has reportedly moved to Delhi High Court with claiming about Rs.100 crores in damages. According to some experts, the damages claimed by the network infrastructure concern makes the suit as the largest patent suit in the Indian IT and telecom space. Ericsson has also claimed that the suit has been filed after three years of negotiations failed to yield a license agreement on ‘standards-essential’ patents.

The patent infringement claimed by Ericsson alleged that the handset manufacturer, Micromax has refused to enter into a licensing agreement even with covering the Ericsson’s patented innovations across several wireless technology standards including GSM, EDGE and 3G. The disputed devices of Micromax include models from the popular Ninja series, Funbook Talk, and the Canvas 2 series.

In this regard, during an interim order last week, Justice Manmohan of the Delhi High Court has asked Micromax to deposit between 1.25 percent to 2 percent of the sale price of disputed devices to the court. On taking more evidences, the court has also allowed executives to join customs officials in inspecting Micromax’s consignments.

The news report stated that Micromax, on the other side, rejected the charges and claimed that Ericsson had failed to adhere to global commitments on providing its industry-essential patents to handset makers under so-called fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

There is also a possibility that the Swedish network concern would take some legal action against few other Indian handset brands as well. The impact of the legal action would also additionally reach to some other Indian brands including Lava, Karbonn, Spice and Intex Technologies, as these brands are also purportedly violates the patent of Ericsson.

It looks like such Indian concerns, which are offering low-cost devices with high-end features would have to face such patent claims in the coming future. With such claims, will these concerns able to sell new devices in the country without any interruption, it is still a question for the market watchers and Indian consumers.